


Unconventional

by InkStainsOnMyHands



Category: Buzzfeed Unsolved (Web Series)
Genre: Artificial Insemination, Babies, Baby making, Badly Written Smut, Explicit Sexual Content, Friends to Lovers, Infertility, M/M, Pregnancy, Trans Male Character, trans!shane, vent fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-18
Updated: 2018-01-18
Packaged: 2019-03-06 08:05:42
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13406991
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InkStainsOnMyHands/pseuds/InkStainsOnMyHands
Summary: ...In that moment, [Shane] can’t find an elegant way to ask, “Hey, you’re exceptionally healthy, have a great personality and are well-educated. Want to be my baby’s daddy?”OrShane and Ryan take an unconventional path to parenthood.





	Unconventional

**Author's Note:**

> You know there’s going to be some douche bag that’s going to make fun on me on tumblr for the tags on this fic. I just know it.
> 
> Anyway, hi guys! This fic is not well-written by any means. This is a vent fic to sort of release the feelings I’ve held in for a while. I am a trans masculine person, who actually had a child after the start of their transition. I haven’t been able to find any fics that represent me, so I wrote one! Now, this isn’t exactly what I went through, this more extreme ~ for drama ~, but yeah... 
> 
> Anyway, please enjoy this mess! Thanks.

Shane is getting old.

Well, older. Regardless, he feels every one of his thirty-two years chip away at his fragile fertility.

It isn’t an existentialist crisis he ever expected to have. Yes, there was a point in time where he had fantasized about a rounded tummy sitting below his heart, about tiny kicks against his belly, about a fluttering heartbeat within his womb, but that was another lifetime ago.

Shane wasn’t that person anymore. That person was angry, and hurt, and sad, so, so sad. He traded her for Shane Madej, a happy, content man.

And men didn’t want to carry babies...did they?

“Sure they do,” his endocrinologist says, meeting Shane’s grave tone with a chipper one. “I’ve had patients pause their treatment to get pregnant, or to have a better chance of getting their partner pregnant. Didn’t make them any less who they are.”

Shane walks out of his doctor’s appointment with a referral to a fertility clinic and a reaffirmation of his validity.

* * *

 

The question is a monster which weighs heavily on Shane’s chest. It wants to crawl up his throat and crash through his teeth. Fear keeps it at bay, but only just.

Eventually, weeks after his initial appointment, weeks after pausing his hormone treatments, weeks after he’s made his final decision, he gracelessly mumbles out the wrong question at work, “Would you come with me to get my blood work done?”

Ryan’s expression twists with bemusement for just a moment before humor softens the lines of his face. “What? Need me to hold your hand so you don’t pass out?” he teases.

A small daydream floats before Shane’s mind’s eye. Ryan holds his hand, reminding him to breathe through his contractions. Shane squeezes his palm as he pushes his child, their child, into the world.

Shane chuckles and shakes his head. “You’ll see why when we get there.”

* * *

 

“I don’t see the place,” Ryan mutters under his breath as he slowly drives into the fertility clinic’s small parking lot.

Shane chuckles. He points to the sign just outside of the two-story office building. One of the four placards reads, Los Angeles Center for Reproductive Health and Fertility. “We’re right here.”

The car stops abruptly, hurling both passengers forward, their seatbelts the only protection stopping them from colliding with the windshield. Shane faces Ryan. Ryan faces Shane.

Ryan’s expression is illegible. Wide-eyes are set beneath a quirked brow. The line of his lips stretch into a thin line that is neither a frown or a smile.

Shane finds his lips quiver into a nervous grin, his cheeks growing warm. He says nothing, deciding better to shrug to convey the enormity of his (hopeful) new reality.

“You’re going to - are you - ?” Ryan babbles. Each word has an unusually high-pitch that Shane thinks is quite endearing.

“I’m - yeah, I want to have a baby,” Shane explains, voice smaller than he desires.

Ryan’s facial features soften, his eyes grow bright, and the corners of his lips curl upwards. “How? Like a surrogate or something?” he shoots out. Before Shane can answer his query, Ryan adds a nearly-startled, “Or, wait, are you?”

Shane nods as his anxiety bursts, bubbling out of him in the form of a small chuckle. “Yeah,” he says simply through his laughter.

Ryan leans in, as if he is about to speak on a great secret. “With who?” The question is posed in a whisper. “Do you have a donor?”

“Not yet,” Shane replies. As the moments go by, he is acutely aware that he’s missing the perfect opportunity to ask Ryan to fulfill this enormous request. It has been eating away at his heart and lungs for near months, but in that moment, he can’t find an elegant way to ask, “Hey, you’re exceptionally healthy, have a great personality and are well-educated. Want to be my baby’s daddy?”

Possibly because of the guilt, because he knows full well those aren’t the only reasons why he wants to have Ryan’s baby.

Ryan breaks the silence by babbling, “Well, I mean, I have a really good family history,” he says slowly, testing the waters between them.

The hottest of shocks rock Shane’s system, leaving him pleasantly numbed, relieved, and unable to respond.

“We’re all super healthy and stuff,” the shorter man continues. “I-uh, aside from some heart problems on my dad’s side, but yeah. And, I mean, I could be there, too, y’know, teach ‘em about sports and stuff. Or, like babysit - I could be Uncle Ryan, or Dad, or however involved you want me to be. I just think it’s better than a stranger, y’know? Because I can help, be there. So, yeah, uh…”

Ryan looks at him as though he’s the one asking for the honor of parenting Shane’s child instead of the other way around. Shane’s heart batters against his chest with enough force to bruise. His smile is so wide, it feels like his face is tearing in half. He can’t contain his arms, which have thrown themselves around Ryan’s shoulders.

“You can be dad, or anything you want.”

* * *

 

A week later, Ryan is the one getting blood work done. They also collect a semen sample for analysis.

Ryan doesn’t change his mind.

A few weeks after that, they’re given the all clear to start a round of artificial insemination.  
  
Ryan still doesn’t change his mind.

Thirty-six hours prior to the procedure, the clinic administers an injection of hCG to trigger ovulation.

Ryan continues to be resolute in his decision, and in fact, after the injection, pushes Shane’s other arm in that excited way he does when he’s a ball of exhilaration just ready to rocket into the atmosphere.

During the insemination process, Ryan holds Shane’s hand as his face contorts with mild discomfort. It isn’t any worse than a pap smear, but anything...down there, makes him want to burst out of his skin just to crawl away from the sensation. He wonders, out loud, how he’ll get through labor.

“Oh, trust me, when the contractions hit, you’re not going to be thinking about that,” the nurse supplies, unhelpfully.

The nurse finishes the procedure and instructs Shane to continue lying down for the next twenty minutes.

Ryan doesn’t release his hand. Instead, he gazes down at him with the gentlest expression he’s ever seen. His eyes seem to warm into a different color, that of rich hot chocolate. Those lips, the very lips Shane admires, has admired for years, give him a feathery-light smile.

The urge to kiss Ryan fills Shane’s chest. His heart flutters uselessly in his chest as he fights the magnetic connection between them.

Their surroundings are clinical, sterile. In spite of them, Shane feels an intense intimacy so suddenly it causes him to let out a shaky breath. Ryan asks him if he’s okay with a small murmur, his thumb stroking over Shane’s knuckles. Wordlessly, Shane nods.

Good lord, it is way too easy to imagine what conceiving a child would feel like if they had done it “naturally”. Shane would be beneath Ryan, breathing raggedly, recovering from their love making. Ryan would look upon him as he does now, with a fondness that chokes Shane. He keeps his hips in place, ensuring that every last drop of his seed makes its way into his womb, ensuring that their union creates life.

It is difficult to feel sexy or heated with a sponge inside of his vagina. Shane manages it all the same.

* * *

 

It doesn’t work.

The next six cycles don’t work either.

There isn’t an explanation as to why Shane awakens to red, sticky disappointment two to three weeks after his appointments. Ryan has excellent sperm. Shane ovulates, and there are no obvious signs of infertility such as endometriosis or polycystic ovaries. It just doesn’t happen for them.

The next treatment will be more invasive than the ones before. Instead of a new round of vaginal insemination, the doctor explains over the phone, they’re going to try intrauterine insemination. Shane is warned to take Tylenol beforehand.

* * *

 

Ryan keeps glancing at Shane every other moment on the way to the clinic. In turn, his lips fall open, but they shut just as quickly. It isn’t until the medical building’s massive sign appears before them that he says, “Maybe this is a good thing, y’know?”

Shane’s nerves are already frayed, their insulation worn to nothing, leaving the wire exposed. He knows Ryan is just trying to make him feel better about this hopeless situation, but he can’t help the way his lurching stomach flares with irritation.

Shane rolls his eyes. “Please don’t say ‘everything happens for a reason’, Ryan. I can’t handle that right now.” He sounds tired, even to his own ears.

As Ryan pulls into a space, he shakes his head. “No, I’m not - I’m just saying, let’s look on the bright side, y’know, maybe if this doesn’t work you can concentrate on your projects or maybe start dating again -”

“Are you saying I can’t work or date after I have a kid?” Shane all but hisses.

The desperation etched on Ryan’s face makes Shane feel even more ill. “No, no. I just want to be positive -”

Shane doesn’t know why he sighs, “Why don’t you and your positivity just go fucking home, Ryan,” but he does. His motivations are a mystery, because he doesn’t want to hurt Ryan, this isn’t his fault, and yet, it doesn’t stop him from jumping out of the car before Ryan shuts off the engine. There is no restraining his slamming of Ryan’s car door, or his stalking off towards the office. Ryan shouts after him, but Shane shouts back, “Thanks for the ride. I’ll call an Uber later.”

Hot tears weigh down his eyes the moment he approaches the front desk and checks in. Once the medical assistant smiles at him and confirms that they will call him in when they’re ready to perform the procedure, he makes a beeline down the hallway to the restroom.

Before he can enter the small, single-toilet bathroom set assigned for men, a woman stumbles out of the girl’s room. Wetness glosses her eyes and stains her reddened cheeks. Loud, hiccupping sobs labor her breathing. She walks passed Shane and into the waiting room.

Curiosity compels Shane to pivot on his heel; he see her rush into the arms of a man, who soothes her with soft words, too soft to hear from where he’s at, and a hug. She nods at him, and with that, they take their leave.

The display sobers Shane. He slowly, awkwardly, makes his way back to the waiting room. The chair in the distant corner, the farthest one away from the other patients, seems to be the most comfortable. With a plop, he sits and looks around the room for a distraction, something to take his mind off of Ryan, off of the woman he had just seen.

There are two couples in the immediate area with him, he notes. The pair consisting of two women look just as distraught as the one that just left.

The reality of it finally dawns on Shane; just because he’s a man, just because he doesn’t have a life partner, just because he’s relatively young and healthy, doesn’t mean he’s immune to the painful sting of infertility. It hurts him just as much as it hurts the woman who passed him. It hurts him just as much as it hurts the lesbian couple huddled together attempting to cry quietly. It hurts.

The past year has been torture, and the only person who grounded him, who soothed him, Shane spurned.

Shane fishes his smartphone out of his pocket and texts Ryan: Hey. I’m a dick. I’m sorry. Would it be too much to ask for you to come back?  
  
The message is “read” a second later.

Shane swallows. He waits for the text bubble that indicates Ryan is in the process of writing back. No such indicator is given. Before he has a chance to deflate, Shane finds Ryan suddenly beside him, explaining himself by whispering, “I was waiting in the parking lot.”

Ryan is going to be a good dad, Shane decides. 

* * *

 

The IUI is just as successful as the IVI. There is nothing to show for the intense cramping and missed day of work.

Shane makes the decision to heed the clinic’s advice and take a break. “Consider all your options”, his fertility physician had said. “If you want, we also offer IVF, but I have to warn you, you will need to take female hormones to do that. Some men find that too difficult to handle.” 

* * *

 

A few weeks later, Shane decides to mourn the loss of having a biological child (with Ryan). He also decides that adoption and surrogacy are far too expensive to achieve on his own. For now, he is going to wait.

Hannah, buzzfeed’s resident friendly neighborhood wine mom, tells Shane that having a baby is just a lot of waiting. He’s compelled to agree.

Something about seeing Hannah with her children, however, scoops out his core, leaving him feeling hollow. Of course, she brought her children to film a video, not to punish Shane for his inability to carry a baby. Regardless, that night, he sobs on his way back to his apartment.

Ryan doesn’t ask him why.

There is no spoken agreement. Ryan simply follows him into his building. They sit on the couch before they realize Shane’s height makes it far too awkward to comfort each other on the sofa, so they move to Shane’s bedroom.

On the bed, Shane places his head on Ryan’s chest and cries until there aren’t any more tears left to give. It leaves him feeling cold, empty, but relaxed - more accurately, exhausted. Numb, he thinks.

Shane peers up at Ryan to find that the shorter man, too, has been weeping. “Sorry,” Ryan offers hoarsely. “I know this isn’t about me, but - it just sucks, you know? There was this thing that I already loved, and now it’s not a thing anymore -” he wipes his tears with the back of his hand, “-it’s sad.”

Shane’s heart, which had felt dead and cold a moment before, skips a beat. Revived by a fraction, he conjurs the strength to lift his head and lean forward.

“I loved them, too,” Shane murmurs; he feels as if he’s confessing something. In a way, he does. He’s telling Ryan, in so many words, that he loves the child that will never be, and by extension, loves Ryan.

Shane doesn’t think Ryan naive, so he isn’t surprised by him meeting Shane halfway, dipping his head down to place a chaste kiss on his lips.

It’s a spark that ignites a roaring fire between them. All of their desires, disappointments, triumphs and failures over the last year culminate into a desperate frenzy of torn clothes, wet kisses and meeting bodies. Shane loses himself in the pleasure of merely being close to Ryan, of simply making out with him like a ravenous teenager, hungry to satisfy a new appetite. It isn’t until Ryan’s hands find their way to his bare hip that Shane thinks better than to allow their affection to escalate.

Shane pulls away from a molten kiss to leave a breathless warning across Ryan’s slick lips, “I think I’m ovulating soon, and I don’t have a condom.”

“Or, we could just try it?” Ryan asks, each word punctuated by a deep exhale.

A coy grin spreads across Shane’s mouth. He bites his lip and nods. “Yeah, yeah, let’s try.”

Ryan returns the catlike expression.

To Shane’s delight, his new lover doesn’t take his words as an invitation to hurry their experience. Instead, Ryan dives back down, taking his time to worship every part of Shane, using his mouth and hands to dutifully explore his body, as though he were paying homage to a god. By the time Ryan’s tongue has found its way to Shane’s engorged clit, he’s nearly weeping from the want of it all.

Ryan brings Shane to orgasm with his lips as he works him open with his fingers. At first, Shane whines, assuming Ryan is teasing him to the point of hysteria for amusement. It isn’t until Ryan kneels between his legs and pulls down his boxers that Shane is grateful for the time Ryan took to make sure he was ready.

Ryan is big, almost comically so. His cock sinks in slowly, and the stretch is amazing, just on the other side of too much. Shane suspects the sensation would be unpleasant if it wasn’t for the way it seemingly touched every pleasure point inside of him.

Ryan gently rocks into him until he works up a rhythm that has Shane whimpering, no, pleading for more, more, MORE!

It was too much and not enough. Shane didn’t think himself an expressive lover until the orgasms Ryan wrought from his body left him clenching and gasping and sobbing and scratching the boy’s back.

It’s good, so fucking good. And, yet, Ryan’s grunts make it even better. Shane swears he can cum just by listening to the boy pant in his ear. Shane does cum when Ryan begs, with a low moan, “Can I -? Inside. Please, please, can I?”

“Yeah, baby,” Shane encourages with a groan. “Yeah, that’s it, cum inside me.”

Ryan stills. His cock twitches inside his spasming walls. Shane is amazed that he can feel it, but then again, how could he not?

When Ryan shifts, Shane is quick to catch him with his long legs. “Gotta stay,” he explains around deep gulps of air. “Gotta make sure.”

Neither take issue with cuddling and kissing in bed for twenty minutes.

* * *

 

Six weeks later, Shane empties his stomach in a Buzzfeed restroom. Later, he asks for the next two weeks off. He must look the way he feels because Ned gives him the vacation, no questions asked.

When Shane gets home, he takes the pregnancy test out of his bedside drawer to admire the two dark lines beneath the plastic window. Yeah, nausea and lethargy drape over him like a weighted blanket ready to suffocate him, but the baby nestled inside him is safe and secure.

Ryan comes home with mashed potatoes and gravy because that’s the only thing Shane can force down his throat.

 

* * *

 

Their son is named Alexander Steven Bergara. He’s seven pounds and thirteen ounces of utter perfection.


End file.
